Gebru 

et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-018-0214-0 Agriculture & Food Security

RESEARCH Open Access

Determinants of livelihood diversification

strategies in Eastern Tigray Region of Ethiopia
Gebrehiwot Weldegebrial Gebru1*  , Hyacinth Ementa Ichoku2 and Philip Ogbonnia Phil‑Eze3

Abstract 
Background:  In Ethiopia, farm households engage and pursue diverse off-farm and non-farm livelihood activities to
cope with diverse challenges such as drought. Due to the unstable and meagre agricultural context of the study area,
farm income alone could not feed the ever increasing population. Without adopting context based livelihood diver‑
sification strategies; the challenge it presents could neither meet nor attain household food security and improve
livelihood security. The objective of the study was to analyse the determinants of livelihood diversification strategies
among rural households in Eastern Tigray Region of Ethiopia.
Methods:  Multistage sampling technique was used in selecting the study sites and 485 sample respondents. Data
were triangulated with information collected using focus group discussion and key informants interview to draw
qualitative conclusion.
Results:  Majority (83.1%) of the farmers were able to diversify their livelihoods into either off-farm or non-farm or
combined income activities, whereas the remaining 16.91% of the households were unable to diversify; often lacking
the means to engage in any form of income-generating activity apart from agricultural activities. Results of the multi‑
nomial logistic regression model revealed that households choice and adoption of livelihood diversification strategies
were positively affected by households level of education, access to credit, income, membership to cooperatives, land
size, and farm input use, whereas age, dependency ratio, family size, access to extension services, distance to market,
livestock ownership and agro-ecology negatively affected.
Conclusions:  Diversification into non-farm activities plays a significant role in the context of inadequate and rain-
fed-dependent agricultural income households. Households who diversified their livelihood activities are the ones
who able to build better asset and less vulnerable than the undiversified ones. Smallholder farmers’ food security and
livelihood improvement can only be realized if the government give due attention and put the right policy measures
in place that support non-farm livelihood diversification as part of national job creation for saving life of many people
and better livelihood.
Keywords:  Determinants, Livelihood diversification, On-farm, Off-farm, Non-farm, Income, Ethiopia

Background varied range of activities and occupations to minimize

Livelihood diversification is a process by which rural
households construct a diverse portfolio of activities
and social support capabilities in their struggle for sur-
vival and improvement in their standards of living [1]
and the means of gaining a living [2]. It can be defined
as the maintenance and continuous alteration of highly
*Correspondence: gebre2007@gmail.com
1
Department of Rural Development and Agricultural Extension, Mekelle
University, Mekelle, Ethiopia
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
household income variability, reduce the adverse impacts
of seasonality, and provide employment or additional
income [1, 3, 4]. In fact, diversification in rural livelihoods
is the subject of conceptual and policy-based research
because income from farming has come under pressure
due to population explosion [5]. Agriculture in the study
area is at subsistence stage, complex, diverse and risk
prone. It is also characterized by severe drought, rainfall
dependence, poor soil fertility, high population growth
and small farm land that push the rural households to

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Gebru et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62
diversify their livelihood strategy into non-farm income
activities. The context of various risks implies that farm
households livelihood diversification is primarily a risk
management strategy; both risk adaptation in anticipa-
tion of shocks and coping after actual shocks. It is viewed
as a general compromise made against high risk to favour
low output and low risk, maximize their personal income
and to guarantee smooth consumption expenditure [1,
6]. Farm households engage and pursue diverse non-farm
livelihood activities to cope with diverse challenges and
risks such as drought [4, 6, 7]. Non-farm activities have
the potential to help households reduce poverty by offer-
ing them with a form of insurance against the threats of
farming and minimizing reliance on natural resources.
Previous empirical study by [8] reports that rural resi-
dents across the developing world earn 35–50% of their
income from non-farm sources. In Ethiopia, empiri-
cal studies found that non-farm income accounts for as
much as 40–45% of the average households income [9,
10]. In this regard, it is obvious that the contribution of
non-farm income is immense but varies from place to
place and people to people due to different contextual
factors.
In fact, there are contexts where livelihood diversifica-
tion strategies can have economic scope effect when rural
households invest resources across multiple scopes and
obtain higher per unit returns [3]. Farmers also need to
diversify due to their inability to specialize and to get suf-
ficient income, and also the need to make self-insurance
against drought. Especially, the better of rural households
that do not only diversify for survival but also for enhanc-
ing better financial returns and then accumulation of
wealth for a better life. In addition to this, empirical stud-
ies consistently show that diversification to non-farm
livelihood strategies enables farm households to have
better incomes, enhance food security, and increase agri-
cultural production by smoothing capital constraints and
help coping with environmental stresses [3, 4, 11, 12].
Farm households that engage in highly productive non-
farm activities typically enjoy upward mobility in earning
[3, 13]. The distribution of income and wealth status play
crucial role in households’ choice over which type of live-
lihood diversification strategy to select and apply. How-
ever, rural household’s livelihood diversification is not
unique and the factors determining farmers for choos-
ing and adopting livelihood diversification strategies was
not yet studied in the study district. Therefore, the objec-
tives of this study were to: (1) identify choices of house-
hold livelihood diversification options and (2) analyse
the determinants of livelihood diversification strategies
among rural households.
Page 2 of 9
Research methods
The study sites
The study was conducted during the year 2016/17 in
Saesietsaeda Emba district, Eastern Zone of Tigray,
Ethiopia which is found at about 883 km north of Addis
Ababa. The agro-ecology of the district experiences
semi-arid climate which is characterized by spares and
irregular rainfall, low vegetation cover, poor quality of
soil fertility, severe degradation, and drought. The study
district receives an average annual rainfall ranging from
350 to 500  mm and temperature ranging from 13 to
20  °C. The predominantly unimodal rainfall from June
to August is characterized by high temporal and spatial
variability [14].
Types and methods of data collection
The study used multistage sampling method to select
the study district and the sample households. First, the
study district was selected purposively out of the seven
districts in Eastern zone of Tigray because of its drought
proneness, high population pressure, land degradation,
scarcity of high cultivable land, existence of high out-
migration and prevalence of food insecurity [15]. Second,
stratified sampling technique was used to select five rural
Kebele1 administrations (KAs) out of the 25 rural KAs.
The selected Kebeles are Raele, Hawile, May-megelta,
Sendeda and Sewne. Finally, 485 sample households were
selected using proportional sampling followed by system-
atic random sampling technique from the study Kebe-
les. Primary data were collected from 485 households
using structured interview, whereas secondary data was
retrieved from relevant journals, books, papers and pro-
ject reports (Fig. 1).
Method of data analysis
Data were analysed using one-way ANOVA such as
mean, standard deviation, maximum, minimum, per-
centage, frequency, and Chi-square test. Multinomial
logistic (MNL) regression analysis was estimated to
analyse the determinants of livelihood diversification
strategies among rural households analyse determi-
nant factors for households to choose and adopt live-
lihood diversification strategies where the dependent
variable has multiple outcomes [j = 1, …, 4, where a
household choice is relying on j(1) = on-farm alone;
j(2) = on-farm + off-farm; j(3) = on-farm + non-farm;
j(4) = on-farm + off-farm + non-farm income-generat-
ing activities]. The estimation of the MNL model was
made by normalizing on-farm alone livelihood strategy
1 
Kebele is the lowest administrative unit in Ethiopia as peasant association
in other countries.
Gebru et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62
Fig. 1  Administrative map of the study District (Saesietsaeda Emba)
as reference category for analysis. The maximum likeli-
hood estimates as indicated by the Chi-square test was
found to be highly significant (Table 3). Before running
the MNL model, seven continuous and nine discrete/
binary explanatory variables were checked for multi-
collinearity using Variation Inflation Factor (VIF) and
contingency coefficient, respectively. The VIF for all
the continuous variables were less than 10 and greater
than one. Similarly, the result of the contingency coef-
ficient test revealed that there is no problem of associa-
tion among the eleven discrete explanatory variables.
This indicates no serious problem of multicollinear-
ity. Therefore, all the hypothesized explanatory vari-
ables (Table 1) which were expected to affect the choice
and adoption of household livelihood diversification
Page 3 of 9
strategies were included in the MNL analysis using
SPSS version 20, and only the statistically significant
variables are discussed (Table 3).
Results and discussion
Household livelihood diversification strategies
Results (Table  2) depicted that majority (83.1%) of the
farmers were able to diversify their livelihoods into
either of the three livelihood diversification strategies
or combined income activities, whereas the remaining
16.9% of the sample households were unable to diver-
sify their livelihoods, often lacking the means to engage
in any form of income-generating activity aside agri-
culture. They are totally dependent on crop and live-
stock husbandry. On the other hand, 11.5, 59.8 and
Gebru et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62 Page 4 of 9

Table 1  Description of variables used in the model

Choices (j) Livelihood diversification strategies

j = 1, ON On-farm alone

j = 2, ON + OFF On-farm + off-farm
j = 3, ON + NF On-farm + non-farm
j = 4, ON + OFF + NF On-farm + off-farm + non-farm
Variables Description and unit of measurement Expected sign

SEX Binary, 1 if the head is male and 0 if female +/−

AGE Continuous, age of household head in years +
EDUCATION Categorical, education level of household head in years +
FAMILYSIZE Continuous, family size of the household in adult equivalent +
INCOME Continuous, annual income of the household head in ETB +
DEPENDANT Continuous, family members < 15 > 64 old age in adult equivalent −
LANDSIZE Continuous, land size holding of the household in hectare +
IRRIGATION Binary, 1 if head has access to irrigation and 0 otherwise +
INPUTUSE Binary, 1 if head has access to agricultural inputs and 0 otherwise +
EXTENSION Binary, 1 if head has access to extension services and 0 otherwise +
COOPRMEM Binary, 1 if head has access to formal cooperatives and 0 otherwise +
REMITANCE Binary, 1 if head has access to economic support and 0 otherwise +
CREDIT Binary, 1 head has access to credit and 0 otherwise +
DISTANCE Continuous, distance to market in km −
LIVESTK Continuous, total livestock ownership in tropical Livestock unit (TLU) +
WEALTH Categorical, 1 if better off, 2 if less poor and 3 if poor +

usage of improved agricultural inputs and high popu-

Table 
2 Choice of  livelihood diversification strategies lation growth. As a result of this and other factors, the
adopted by the sample households agricultural sector could not absorb the rural productive
Choice of livelihood Frequency Per cent Cumulative % labour force. In converse, it aggravates the already unsta-
diversification strategies ble livelihood situation of the farmers.
On-farm only 82 16.9 16.9
On-farm + off-farm 56 11.5 28.5 Determinants of smallholder farmer’s livelihood
On-farm + non-farm 290 59.8 88.2 diversification strategies
On-farm + off-farm + non-farm 57 11.8 100.0 Except sex, all the 15 hypothesized independent variables
Total 485 100.0 were found significantly affecting farmers choices and
adoption of certain livelihood diversification strategies at
different probability levels (Table 3).
As expected, age (AGE) was found significant at 5%
11.8% of the sample households were able to diversify probability level to negatively influence smallholder
into on-farm + off-farm, on-farm + non-farm, and on- farmers’ livelihood diversification into on-farm + non-
farm + off-farm +  non-farm income-generating liveli- farm income-generating activities. Interpretation of the
hood strategies, respectively (Table 2). odds-ratio implies that if other factors are held constant,
The already declining size of farm land coupled with the the odds-ratio in favour of the probability of the house-
high population growth could have a potentially negative hold to choose on-farm + non-farm income-generating
impact on rural welfare and food security in Sub-Saharan livelihood strategies of the household decreases by a
Africa (SSA) [4, 8, 16]. This is already negatively impact- factor of 5.750 as the age of the household increases by
ing the food security of the smallholder farmers and may 1 year. The probable reason is that young households are
also be severely affecting the predicted rapid population relatively better educated, have better access to technolo-
growth in the future. Secondly, Agricultural production gies, and look alternative livelihood opportunities. Edu-
and productivity is being challenged by the continuing cation level of the household head (EDUCATION) was
drought occurrence coupled with limited farm land, poor found to be one of the most important determinants of
Gebru et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62 Page 5 of 9

Table 3  Result of multinomial logistic regression model

Household livelihood diversification strategies adopted by the household

Independent variables On-farm + off-farm On-farm + non-farm On-farm + off-farm + non-farm

Coefficient SE OR Coefficient SE OR Coefficient SE OR

Intercept 5.601* 3.139 3.185 6.440* 2.513 6.568 5.327* 3.112 2.929
SEX .433 .545 .631 .085 .441 .037 .919 .571 2.593
AGE − .009 .018 .242 − .034** .014 5.750 − .002 .020 .014
EDUCATION .735* .391 3.536 .463*** .300 2.373 .233*** .392 .354
FAMILYSIZE − .203* .115 3.108 − .042** .082 .266 .050 .117 .179
INCOME .000*** .000 23.915 .000*** .000 24.367 .000*** .000 23.269
DEPENDANT − .332** .162 4.185 − .078 .124 .399 − .011 .170 .004
LANDSIZE − .362 .298 1.471 .556*** .209 7.056 .044 .279 .025
IRRIGATION − .980* .568 2.980 .444 .488 .825 .466 .616 .571
INPUTUSE 1.077 .838 1.653 1.347* .730 3.406 .893 .952 .879
EXTENSION − .550*** .161 11.660 − .187 .131 2.044 − .399** .174 5.263
COOPMEM .364 .440 .685 .903*** .330 7.506 1.099** .453 5.898
REMITANCE .230 .592 .152 .900** .428 4.431 − 1.902 .510 13.929
CREDIT − .396 .514 .593 .581 .417 1.946 1.222*** .520 5.519
DISTANCE − .094* .054 3.042 − .050 .037 1.805 − .009** .041 .046
LIVESTK − .055** .026 4.371 .014 .019 .531 − .053* .028 3.564
WEALTH .237 .275 .738 .181 .217 .696 .738*** .287 6.595
The reference category is: on-farm alone
 Maximum likelihood estimates
  Dependent variable Livelihood diversification strategies
  Number of observation 485
  − 2 Log likelihood model fitting Intercept only: 1075.644, Final: 798.242
  Chi-square test 277.403
  Degrees of freedom 54
  Significance 0.000
***, **, * Significant at less than 1, 5, and 10% probability level, respectively

livelihood diversification as prior expectation. Educa-
tion level has a positive and significant (p < 0.1, p < 0.01,
and p  < .01) relationship with households livelihood
diversification into on-farm + off-farm, on-farm + non-
farm and combination of on-farm  + off-farm + non-
farm livelihood diversification strategies, respectively.
The result of the odds-ratio depicts that, keeping other
factors constant, the odds-ratio in favour of the likeli-
hood of the households to choose on-farm + off-farm,
on-farm + non-farm and combination of on-farm + off-
farm + non-farm livelihood diversification strategies will
increase by a factor of 3.536, 2.373 and .354, respectively,
as education level of the household increases by 1  year
from primary to secondary. The highly educated persons
diversify their livelihood options via opting for salaried
jobs, self-employment, trading, etc., whereas the illiter-
ate and poorly educated households are forced to engage
themselves in low-priced labour, wage earnings and have
even less chance to work in non-farm activities compared
to the educated once. Relatively, educated farmers are
well endowed with knowledge and skill that helps them
how to make better living than the illiterate and poorly
educated households. The result of this finding is in line
with the findings obtained by [17].
Productive family size adds significantly to the share
of total income received from farming by participating
in different non-farm income diversification strategies.
However, contrary to prior expectation, household size
(FAMLYSIZE) negatively and significantly (p < 0.1 and
p < 0.01) influenced the participation of households in on-
farm + off-farm and on-farm + non-farm income diversi-
fied livelihood strategies. Interpretation of the odds-ratio
depicted that, if other factors held constant, the odds-
ratio in favour of the probability of the households to
diversify into on-farm  +  off-farm and on-farm  + non-
farm income diversified livelihood strategies decreases
by a factor of 3.108 and .042, respectively, as the family
size of the household increases by one. The underlined
Gebru et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62
point here is that large household size does not mean all
the household members are productive labour force. This
is due to the fact that some of the household members
are physically disabled and mentally disordered due to
the past war between the current government of Ethio-
pia and the military regime of Derg; and also due to the
Ethio-Eritrean war from 1998 to 2002 and other diseases
in the study area. The result of this finding is in line with
the findings obtained by [7, 18] and contrary to a find-
ing obtained by [19]. In line with this, the coefficient of
dependency households (DEPENDANT) was found
to have negative relationship with on-farm + off-farm
choices of household livelihood diversification strategies
and statistically significant at 5% probability level. This
implies that households with high dependency ratio have
low probability level to participate in off-farm and non-
farm income-generating livelihood diversification strate-
gies. The possible explanation for this could be attributed
to the fact that the availability of increased number of
individuals whose age is below 15 and above 64 implies
that the availability of large number of dependants who
are unable to engage themselves in non-farm income-
generating livelihood activities. The result of this study is
consistent with the finding obtained by [20].
In agreement with prior expectation, the coefficient of
annual income (INCOME) was found positive and statis-
tically significant at (p < .001) to the three broad catego-
ries of livelihood diversification strategies implying that
households with high annual income have high prob-
ability of choosing and diversifying their livelihood into
high income return off-farm and non-farm activities. If
other factors remain constant, the odds-ratio in favour
of the smallholder farmers to choose on-farm + off-farm,
on-farm + non-farm and combination of on-farm + off-
farm + non-farm income activities increases by a factor of
23.915, 24.367 and 23.269, respectively, as income of the
household increases by one ETB. The result of this study
is consistent with the findings of [3, 21, 22]. Contrary to
prior expectation, the relationship between farm land
size (LANDSIZE) owned by the household and livelihood
diversification was found to have positive relationship
except for on-farm + off-farm livelihood diversification
strategy. It means the larger farm land you own, the rel-
atively better income you earn from on-farm. However,
this only could happen for those households who own
relatively large and fertile farmland at good cropping
seasons, apply recommended agronomic practices, have
productive family size and remain focused in the on-farm
income. Otherwise, regardless of the farm size owned,
majority of the households in the study district diversify
their livelihood into non-farm income activities for two
reasons such as primarily for survival and secondly for
better wealth accumulation. In fact, on-farm income in
Page 6 of 9
the study district cannot feed the whole family and guar-
antee farmers from diversifying their income activities.
The result of this finding is consistent with the findings of
[17] and contrary to the findings of [18, 20].
As expected, access to irrigation (IRRIGATION) has
found positively and significantly affected households’
livelihood diversification strategy into on-farm + off-farm
at 1% level of significance. Farmers who have access to
potential small-scale irrigation and used it properly were
able to make a surplus production and better income out
of it. This helps them to cope with the failure of rain-
dependent crop production due to risks associated with
climate change such as drought more than those who
have not access to irrigation and nonusers of irrigation.
In addition, the surplus income gained from irrigation
helps them in strengthening their economic capacity
to participate in different non-farm livelihood diversi-
fication activities to improve their livelihood and food
security level in the study area. Similarly, the estimated
coefficient for input use (INPUTUSE) has found posi-
tively and statistically affected households’ participation
in on-farm + non-farm livelihood diversification strat-
egy at 10% level of significance. Access to agricultural
inputs and its recommended application practices are
an indispensable part of improving agricultural produc-
tion and productivity. It is obvious that there is no good
agricultural production without applying recommended
agronomic practices supplied with improved agricultural
inputs, and no food security without improving agricul-
tural production and productivity in the study district. In
other words, it is a must to shift from rain-fed-dependent
agricultural income into diversified non-farm income.
The result of this study is in line with the findings by [23].
Against to prior expectation, livestock holding
(LIVESTK) in tropical livestock unit (TLU) has negatively
and statistically affected households’ participation in on-
farm + off-farm livelihood diversification strategy at 5%
level of significance. Similarly, livestock holding has nega-
tively and statistically affected household’s participation
in on-farm + off-farm + non-farm livelihood diversifica-
tion strategy at 10% level of significance. The odds-ratio
revealed that, if other factors remain constant, the likeli-
hood of rural households to choose on-farm + non-farm
and combination of on-farm + off-farm + non-farm live-
lihood diversification strategies decreases by a factor of
4.371 and 3.564, respectively as the livestock holding
increases by one TLU. This means rural households who
own more TLU have more probability to remain without
diversifying their livelihood options into on-farm + off-
farm and/or combination of the three (on-farm + off-
farm +  non-farm) livelihood strategies but able to
diversify into on-farm + non-farm income activities. The
possible reason for this is that households who own more
Gebru et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62
TLU could earn much money by selling their livestock
and able to strengthen their financial capacity which is
very essential for entry to non-farm income-generating
activities. This result is in line with the findings of [19, 24,
25].
Access to extension services plays a central role in
improving and attaining the goal of agricultural and
rural development goals. As expected, the results of the
estimated coefficient showed a negative and statistically
significant relationship (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05) between
frequencies of extension contact (EXTENSION) and
farmers livelihood diversification into on-farm + non-
farm and on-farm  + off-farm + non-farm activities,
respectively. Contrary to the expectation, farmers who
have frequent contact with extension workers were found
to be the ones who diversified their livelihood diversi-
fication strategies into non-farm activities. The possi-
ble explanation for this could be that extension workers
are not only providing agricultural extension services to
farmers but also entrepreneurial skills, the entry point for
participating in non-farm income business activities. The
result of this study is consistent with the findings of [26].
As projected, the sign of the estimated coefficients was
found to have positive relationship between membership
to cooperatives (COOPMEM and on-farm + non-farm
and combination of on-farm + off-farm + non-farm liveli-
hood strategies and statistically significant at p < 0.01 and
at p < 0.05 probability level, respectively. If other factors
remain constant, the odds-ratio in favour of the small-
holder farmers to choose on-farm + non-farm or com-
bination of the three (on-farm + off-farm + non-farm)
livelihood diversification strategies increases by a factor
of 7.506 and 5.898, respectively, as membership to coop-
eratives increases by one. Households who are members
of formal cooperatives gain benefits like sharing income
and labour, access to credit, reduced individual transac-
tion cost, updated market information on farm produce
such as on inputs and farm equipments. The result is in
agreement with previous findings obtained by [20].
The result of the MNL regression model revealed that
remittance income (REMITANCE) was found to have
positively and statistically affected household’s partici-
pation in on-farm + non-farm livelihood diversification
strategy at 5% level of significance. If other factors are
held constant, the odds-ratio in favour of the smallholder
farmers to choose on-farm + non-farm livelihood diversi-
fication strategies increases by a factor of 4.431 as remit-
tance income increases by one ETB. Hence, increasing
rural households remittance income plays a vital role for
enhancing and smoothing household consumption prob-
lem, strengthen social network/social capital, increase
saving and investment, help households gain access to
Page 7 of 9
diversified opportunities like trading, and then able to
improve their livelihood. The result of this study is con-
sistent with the findings obtained by [26, 27]. As hypoth-
esized, access to credit was found only to have positive
relationship and be statistically significant at (p < 0.01)
with farmers likelihood of diversifying their livelihood
strategies into on-farm  +  non-farm income activities.
Keeping other factors constant, the odds-ratio in favour
of the smallholder farmers to choose combination of
the three (on-farm  + off-farm + non-farm) livelihood
diversification strategies increases by a factor of 5.519 as
access to credit increases by one. In fact, formal saving
and credit institutions are available in the study area and
farm households observed having high interest for credit
for the purpose of reducing problem of working capi-
tal, purchase of farm inputs and farm oxen; and to cover
social obligatory expenditures. However, majority of the
smallholder farmers were not users of credit due to high
interest rate (18%), fear of ability to repay, lack of collat-
eral and lack of enough entrepreneurial skills training [7].
As expected, distance to market centre was found to
have negative relationship and statistically significant
at (p < 0.10 and p < 0.05) probability levels with house-
hold’s likelihood of livelihood diversification into on-
farm +  off-farm and on-farm  + off-farm + non-farm
income-generating activities, respectively. Interpretation
of the odds-ratio for the distance from nearest market
centre indicated that keeping other factors constant, the
odds-ratio in favour of the smallholder farmers to choose
on-farm + off-farm and/or combination of the three (on-
farm + off-farm +  non-farm) livelihood diversification
strategies decreases by factor of 3.042 and .046 as the
distance from the household’s home to market centre
increases by one km. It is clear that the more households
are distant from market centre, the more disadvantaged
from diversifying their livelihood income into non-farm
options. As expected, wealth (WEALTH) has positively
and statistically affected households’ likelihood into on-
farm + off-farm +  non-farm livelihood diversification
strategies at 10% level of significance. Keeping other fac-
tors constant, the odds-ratio in favour of the probability
of the households to choose on-farm + off-farm + non-
farm livelihood diversification strategies increase by a
factor of .738 as wealth status of the household increases
by one unit. It is true that individuals with a high initial
livelihood asset have greater freedom of choosing high
return non-farm activities and benefit most. The result of
this study is consistent with the findings of [4, 7, 13, 19,
27, 28].
Gebru et al. Agric & Food Secur (2018) 7:62
Conclusions and recommendations
The study concludes that smallholder farmers at Saesi-
etsaeda Emba district of Eastern Tigray Ethiopia use
diverse livelihood strategies to achieve their prioritized
livelihood objectives. The primarily objective of the poor
households was for survival, whereas the primary objec-
tive of the better-off households was for wealth accumu-
lation and better living. Majority of the households in the
study area have unevenly diversified sources of income.
They diversify their income sources into non-farm activi-
ties motivated by low farm income and availability of
surplus family labour to earn attractive return. In fact,
households who diverse their livelihood activities are
less vulnerable than the undiversified farm households.
Majority (83.1%) of the sample households were able to
diversify into on-farm + off-farm or on-farm + non-farm
or combination of on-farm + off-farm + non-farm liveli-
hood strategies, whereas 16.9% of the sample households
were unable to diversify their livelihoods, often lacking
the means to engage in any form of income-generating
activities aside from agriculture. It is noteworthy that
despite the less attention given by the government, non-
farm activities play significant role in the context of inad-
equate and rain-fed-dependent subsistence agricultural
income areas.
Furthermore, results of the multinomial logistic regres-
sion model attested that households’ choice and adop-
tion of livelihood diversification strategies were positively
determined by the households’ level of education, access
to credit, income, membership of cooperatives, remit-
tance income, farmland, access to irrigation and access
to credit, whereas age, dependency ratio, family size,
access to extension services, distance to market, livestock
ownership and agro-ecology were found to have negative
relationship and significantly affecting households’ choice
and adoption of livelihood diversification strategies.
To enhance the adoption of household livelihood diver-
sification strategies and to improve the livelihood of the
smallholder farmers in the study area as a result, the
study recommends the following: (1) government should
recognize and support non-farm livelihood diversifica-
tion strategies as part of the national job creation objec-
tives instead of solely sticking to the inadequate and
drought-prone farm income alone; (2) investing in quality
education and increasing access to higher education will
help the rural households’ probability of participation in
off-farm and non-farm livelihood diversification activi-
ties; (3) access to credit constraints and lack of entrepre-
neurship skills may have to be addressed via provision of
enough credit with lowest interest rate and entrepreneur-
ship skills trainings before farmers engage in non-farm
income-generating activities; (4) intensive work on irriga-
tion and making it accessible to smallholder farmers have
Page 8 of 9
paramount importance for getting better income and sta-
ble livelihood as response to drought; and (5) expansion
of rural–urban road has vital role to link and strengthen
the socio-economic liaison and foster development
between the rural and urban people.
Abbreviations
TLU: tropical livestock unit; MNL: multinomial logistics.
Authors’ contributions
All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Author details
1
 Department of Rural Development and Agricultural Extension, Mekelle
University, Mekelle, Ethiopia. 2 Department of Economics, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, Nigeria. 3 Department of Geography, University of Nigeria, Nsukka,
Nigeria.
Acknowledgements
Not applicable.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.
Consent for publication
Not applicable.
Ethics approval and consent to participate
Not applicable.
Funding
The authors thank Mekelle University (PhD Research, 2017), capacity build‑
ing competitive grant training the next generation of scientist provided
by Carnegie Cooperation of New York through the Regional Universities
Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) (RU/2016/INTRA-ACP/
RG/025,2017) and Association of African Universities (PC/6, 2016) for providing
financial support.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in pub‑
lished maps and institutional affiliations.
Received: 25 July 2018 Accepted: 30 August 2018
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